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High Definition Props and Textures - Discussion thread

Started by mightygoose, March 28, 2009, 01:38:50 PM

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Ennedi

Tage explained correctly what should be made in his reply to Simfox.
The same operation is much more simple to do in rock, water or any terrain-connected mod. What did I do it?

-The rock mod contains of five FSH files with the same TID, GID and IID from 0x00000044 for Zoom 0 (usually called Zoom 1) to 0x00000444 for zoom 4 (usuallly cllled Zoom 5). I made the sixth TGI file in the Reader Export-Import folder with an IID 0x00000544. Then I moved an addtional texture to this folder (it was different from textures for Z0-Z4 to see clearly if it works), then imported the 6th FSH into the dat. I made it without any problem, then reindexed, rebuilt directory file and installed the dat in plugins. But when I switched to Zoom 6 (ie. Z5 in Reader), I saw the texture from Z5 (Z4 in Reader). I can repeat the experiment, but I'm rather sure I made it correctly.

Adam
New Horizons Productions
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RippleJet

Quote from: choco on June 09, 2009, 01:02:58 PM
i was thinking similarly.....was that suggestion prior to the new scripts?

Yes, it was.


Quote from: Ennedi on June 09, 2009, 01:18:07 PM
But when I switched to Zoom 6 (ie. Z5 in Reader), I saw the texture from Z5 (Z4 in Reader). I can repeat the experiment, but I'm rather sure I made it correctly.

Thanks, Adam! And also a huge thank you for posting your comparison above.




I think this picture alone is enough to keep us from wishing everything was rendered in HD...

  • zoom 5 may turn out to be a lot worse in HD than initially thought
  • zoom 5 is viewed a lot more often in the game than zoom 6
  • the filesize of a large building rendered in HD is too big compared to the added value in zoom 6


Even if we restrict ourselves to only making small props (e.g. signs) in HD,
each such prop should be checked in the game for appearance in zoom 5 and compared to its appearance if rendered in SD.

The SOGO neon sign on Mas さん's building above could e.g. have been made as a small prop.
However, in this particular case, the higher quality in zoom 6 doesn't warrant the lower quality in zoom 5.

buddybud

Hi guys...

i justed wanted to add to this.



above we can see some puzzle pieces i was working on for my elrail. I wanted high def so i could show the metal lattice work mostly. The prop that is of note is the top floor between the roof and bottom floor. In the picture you can see this prop placed 3 times. In each placement the railing on this level shows various degrees of pixelation even though the prop is the same in each placement.

also of note is the railing directly below it on the bottom floor (seperate prop) which doesnt suffer the same problem. The difference between the two was how the lodding was done. This floor (bottom) is just your simple BLOCK lod that most people use and seems to offer different results then the lodding above (top floor) which has COMPLEX lods to allow placement of various props on the platform level.

Also i used simfox's gmax script to create these. I will attempt to do these again in a couple different methods (shrinking and also manually refishing) to see if there is a difference also.

So lodding definitively seems to have an influence on the clarity of the prop involved, though i am unsure of why it's appearence changes which each plop.

Hopefully someone can make some sense of it.

Slightly Frazzled Bud

RippleJet

Narrow diagonal lines and quick changes in colour saturation (from dark to bright or v/v)
will never work perfectly when the image is reduced 50% in size,
and loosing ¾ of the information contained in the orginal image.

Let's see if I can explain that a little better with an example...

In the centre of the image below is a small blue square sized 10×10 pixels.
Diagonally through the square there's a thin red line, which is anti-aliased with the background:



Now, as we can't see much from that little dot, let's zoom in 1600%... ::)



Now, consider this is something HD at zoom 6 and we want to reduce it by 50% to get it to zoom 5.

When reducing the image without any anti-aliasing
(which I'm sure doesn't occur when the image is reduced in the game,
since no anti-aliasing takes place when a normal zoom 5 image is enlarged 200% for zoom 6),
there are four alternatives, you'd use any of the four pixels within every square of 2×2 pixels.

For the comparison below I'm only showing two of these alternatives (as the other two would be very similar in this case):

In the first example, the upper left-hand corner of every square of 2×2 pixels has been retained,
in the second example, the lower left-hand corner has been retained:

     

Now, let's reduce these images by 50% (to get to zoom 5) and remove everything white between the remaining pixels:

     

Those two images are quite different, compared to each other...
Since there's no way of determining which pixels remain, sometimes the railings (as shown by Bud)
will remain visible (and might actually look sharper), sometimes they almost disappear alltogether...

buddybud

Thanks Ripple Jet, that makes sense. Much appreciated.  :thumbsup:

Bud

cogeo

Quote from: SimFox on April 13, 2009, 12:01:47 PM
I'm attaching to this message scripts for GMAX BAT. This is a full and complete set of scripts used by GMAX BAT.
Installation instructions are very simple - replace with these all the scripts in gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scripts

Short ? : I see the list also contains a copy of the ModelNames.MS script. Are there any changes here? It rather looks same as the "fixed" version released by Maxis. Could I use the old one instead? Also are ALL included scripts changed? It rather seems that two files are changed, and there is also an additional file, ie you have included all scripts for completeness; but this may be a bit confusing.

SimFox

#446
Cogeo:
Yep, the model name file that is in that package is a new one from maxis. You can use you old one if you choose to.

I included all files simply to make sure that everything works without going into to much details that tend to "loose" people in mid readme and tons of  "it doesn't work for me, although I did everything as instructed" which are virtually never true, yet keep coming...

I'm sorry that my file illustrating games inability to pick up additional zoom level was somehow wrong... Here is a new corrected one . I've retested the while thing today, and results are same - game is capable to recognize only zoom levels coded 0 to 4 eg Zoom1 to Zoom5.
To add couple of words to the whole discussion of the practicality of HD buildings.
I must side with those who say that there isn't any.
Everything looks best when displayed in 1:1 with neither stretching (as SD stuff at Zoom6) or reduction (as HD stuff at Zoom5). Taking this golden rule into account it becomes quite clear that those things that are likely be "used" at zoom6 are the prime candidates to HDing. And those are smallest things in game, those that are complete mess at Zoom6 and not much better (because of small size) at Zoom5. There we gain a lot without sacrificing much. Buildings, on the other hand are, especially well designed ones will suffer at zoom5 and at zoom6 only a portion of such a creating would be seen. Ripplejet had eloquently demonstrated basic principle of the process in his last post.

thingfishs

Hi,
I am wanting to make a few small HD props (postboxes, telephone booths) but wasn't clear on how one actually creates a HD version, do I need to start from scratch or can I turn my existing model into a HD version? I can't find any tutorials on the subject,
thanks

MandelSoft

Unless if there's no gMax or 3DS model available, you have to start from scratch. If it's the first case, it's just a matter of re-rendering the object with the same Type, Group, and Instance ID's as the old SD model.
Lurk mode: ACTIVE

timmystwin

Cheers for uploading that file, i could really use that...

A_1P

Quote from: SimFox on April 13, 2009, 12:01:47 PMI'm attaching to this message scripts for GMAX BAT. This is a full and complete set of scripts used by GMAX BAT.
Installation instructions are very simple - replace with these all the scripts in gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scripts

@Tarkus The download link for the HD script is broken as well, could that be reattached?

mgb204


Tarkus

Quote from: A_1P on February 24, 2022, 12:27:03 PM
Quote from: SimFox on April 13, 2009, 12:01:47 PMI'm attaching to this message scripts for GMAX BAT. This is a full and complete set of scripts used by GMAX BAT.
Installation instructions are very simple - replace with these all the scripts in gmax\gamepacks\BAT\scripts

@Tarkus The download link for the HD script is broken as well, could that be reattached?

The recent forum upgrade broke every attachment uploaded prior to about October 2011 (the date of the last major forum software upgrade, which also broke attachments).  The files are actually still on the server, but with the way our forum software works, they're in a sort of semi-encrypted form (which uses a hashtable that's tied in with the post ID), so it's not as easy as just simply re-uploading the file.  I'm still attempting to fix it, but have not had any success as of yet.

-Alex

Tarkus

I've since fixed the file in question . . . after having to deal with a minor forum upgrade knocking out even more attachments (almost all of them, to be precise).  Also, I don't know if the files originally on this post are of use, but I've attached them below, as there's something strange about that post that wouldn't let me update the attachments on it (spitting out a 500 error).

-Alex